Come midnight at the UNCCC negotiations, when agreement had still not been reached on a climate deal, it took a David to tell Goliath to bugger off.

Yup, Kevin Conrad, the rep from Papua New Guinea rose at 1AM to say to the recalcitrant US negotiating team, "We seek your leadership. If for some reason you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way."

Twenty minutes later, Paula Dobriansky, the US rep, rose to say "we will go forward and join the consensus."

Notes Calvin Jones, “after the reception Conrad’s statement received from the conference hall, the US delegation were completely isolated.”

Thirty minutes previously, following an impassioned plea by UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon (who flew back to Bali to help close the deal), the EU had backed down from its insistence on firm emissions reduction targets.

And thus it all ended. Whew!

Now then, about the terribly watered down deal: no targets or dates, no commitments from any country for any specific measures, and two years to hammer out the details.

Oh well. The global press insists on calling it a roadmap, yet it has no destination.

Guess this is another example of how we cannot realistically expect government to lead...but hopefully they'll become better followers in the months ahead.